SMILING & DIALING

We are honored to be selected for the WXPN Feature Album of the Week this week. With her fourth album, Birdie Busch & the Greatest Night, Birdie has created a muscular, angular and band psychedelphia of beautiful melodies, honest lyrics and engaging rhythms all cut live to tape in the studios of Dr Dog's engineer, Nathan Sabatino. Birdie and her band the Greatest Night will debut the album at her Philly Opry event at Johnny Brenda's on Friday January 18 at 9pm with Jason Loughlin and Joy Kills Sorrow. Some tickets are still available for this show. Birdie was chosen last week as part of the Pledge Music favorite albums of the year by the staff and founder Benji Rogers. Love that.

I will be joining Dan Reed for the 7th Annual High's in the 70's Prog Rock Marathon on WXPN this coming Saturday January 5. This year we are doing 12 hours of prog with Echoes NPR host John Diliberto and Star's End host Chuck van Zyl. Joining us this year will be author Dave Thompson, who will bring his own collection of prog oddities. Plenty of classics and my personal assortment of vinyl near-cult classics like Blodwyn Pig, Tasavallen Presidente, Audience, Andy Pratt and Matching Mole. What makes for near cult status in prog?

FAVORITES OF 2012 Found a great combination of artists of all ages making music still vital, challenging and just plain entertaining. Gorgeous melodies, strong grooves and relevant themes continue to shine each year, in both the album format and the digital single. These are not really the biggest selling records, but more the ones I spent the most time listening during the year. I decided for the first time to divide the music makers into three age groups. Never really thought about that before, but now that so many men and women are making pop and rock music into their 70's, it has stretched the writing cycle well beyond teen angst and middle-aged revolution. NEW ELDERLY BOB DYLAN - 'Duquesne Whistle' has the single best groove of the year. ROLLING…

glad tidings for the new year. while reading the station's top 100 list, i assembled a list of favorite recordings of 2011. these are not necessarily the best of the year, but are the ones i listened to again and again, and found something more i liked about them each time. i would define a "best of" list as those that got the most airplay and sold the most copies, and achieved mainstream attention in a world that has adapted to the mediastream. so instead of the 'best' here's my most enjoyed. FAVORITE SOUNDS OF THE NEW ELDERLY:: my morning jacket - best rock record made this year. loved the who^ references, especially the pete townsend windmill riffs in ''circuital''. intense, delicate, serious and tongue in cheek, MMJ marries all…